NC legislature has passed fewer bills so far in 2017

University of North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams acknowledges a standing ovation during a joint session of the state House and Senate May 3 held to honor his team's national championship.(Photo: Chuck Liddy, AP)

For all the arguments, lawsuits and insults during this session of the state General Assembly, legislators haven't actually passed that many laws compared to previous years.

As of the end of Thursday, only 33 bills had become law since the legislature started work in Raleigh in January, according to a list kept on the General Assembly website. That's less than half the 80 bills approved as of the same date two years ago and less than a third of the average of 119 at this point of every "long" session of the General Assembly this century.

(Long sessions begin in January in odd-numbered years and run into summer. Short sessions start in April or May of even-numbered years and usually end in July.)

The numbers do not tell the whole story of how productive this or any other legislature has been. Passing one bill that reorganizes an entire area of state government or sets new policy on a complicated set of issues takes more time than approving changes in the election dates for the towns of Troy and Star or clarifying language regarding plumbing and heating licenses, to name two bills that have passed so far.

This chart shows the number of bills in the state legislature that had become law as of June 15 of each odd-numbered year since 2001.(Photo: Mark Barrett/mbarrett@citizen-times.com)

But the gap is large enough that it probably does reflect some changes in how the legislature runs and how much it has accomplished. Two longtime observers of the General Assembly agreed that the figures do reflect a somewhat different way of operating and less action on major issues so far in the Legislative Building this year.

Republicans gained a majority in the legislature in 2011 – a year in which 145 bills had made it into law by this point – and have just finished four years in which they also had a Republican in the governor's office more likely to sign what they sent him.

Ferrell Guillory, a former editor for The News & Observer of Raleigh who now teaches at UNC-Chapel Hill and writes on education and other issues, said the 2017 session has been "a kind of a session in which the Republican supermajority continued to consolidate its agenda."

When Republicans first got control of the legislature, they had a long to-do list, he said, but the major parts of the GOP agenda have now become law.

Joe Stewart, executive director of the pro-business N.C. FreeEnterprise Foundation, had a similar view.

Republicans "have already taken on a lot of their key priority items and to some extent there's not as much to do," he said.

Also, there have been fewer crises for the legislature to respond to after it dealt with HB2, Stewart said.

"Sometimes legislative sessions are more dynamic or seemingly more productive because of what's going on," he said. "The legislature that wrote the laws regarding steamships got real busy right after the Titanic sank."

Stewart said House and Senate leaders have had "a greater sense of focus and discipline" and that may have kept the lid on consideration of some bills.

Not passing laws may also be more in tune with the conservative philosophy of trying to limit government involvement in other sectors of society. "If you do nothing, you do nothing wrong," Stewart said.

Other reasons for the lower number include:

• HB2. Two of the most important bills passed this legislative session were alterations to laws the General Assembly approved in 2016. One repealed parts of HB2, the other eased the impact of restrictions on classroom size.

HB2 occupied hours and hours of legislators' time last year and again this year until the new bill passed March 30. Republicans held repeated caucuses to work out a deal, and Democrats spent lots of time discussing it as well.

• A less demanding schedule. There have been many days when either the House or Senate or both scheduled no floor votes, meaning legislators could stay home if they wanted and committee work was unlikely because members were not present.

An extreme example was the first week of May, when the only legislation approved in either chamber was a resolution honoring the UNC-Chapel Hill men's basketball team. Legislators involved in the budget process did meet behind closed doors, but many of their colleagues had little to do besides break out their sky blue UNC clothing to wear the day the team visited.

University of North Carolina basketball players Kennedy Meeks, left, and Justin Jackson react during a joint session of the North Carolina House and Senate May 3 where legislators honored the 2017 NCAA championship team.(Photo: Chuck Liddy, AP)

• Combat with the governor. Republican legislators and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper have clashed over redistricting, Medicaid expansion, legislative confirmation of gubernatorial appointments, changes to the way elections are administered, and partisan election of judges, among other topics. Many of the disputes have ended up in court, requiring legislators to huddle up and decide what course of action to take.

All of that takes time. Confirmation of appointees was especially time-consuming as there were disputes over whether requiring confirmation was legal, committee meetings called then cancelled when nominees didn't show up and then hearings when they finally did.

Knowledge that some bills would not have enough support to overcome a gubernatorial veto probably stalled them before they even reached the floor of the House or Senate. Overriding Cooper vetoes has also taken up legislative time.

• The caucus system. Guillory and Stewart both said some of the debate over legislation has shifted from committees and the House and Senate floor to closed-door caucus meetings of House or Senate Republicans.

"I do hear from lobbyists and colleagues that seemingly much more is being decided by the leadership behind closed doors. Historically, much more was being discussed in a more conspicuous way," Stewart said.

The shift has had more impact on the openness with which the legislature operates than the number of bills it passes. Still, it means some bills that might pass with support from a minority of Republicans but a majority of Democrats never reach the House or Senate floor. Bills that get support from most GOP legislators in a caucus meeting sometimes get debated at least once there and then again in the full House or Senate.

• The Senate Rules Committee. New procedures mean many bills these days pass through the committee twice, another delay before passage.

• It's in the budget. Legislators in recent years have increasingly used the must-pass budget bill as a vehicle to pass proposals that before might have been voted on as a separate bill. This year's budget bill, for instance, contains language adjusting how the state deals with lead hazards, changing how some law enforcement agencies are organized and repealing a state law on the rights of people whose property lies within the path of a planned highway.

The most recent version of the budget bill this year runs to 366 pages. House and Senate conferees will make changes and it won't pass in that exact form, but if it did, that would make it the second longest budget bill the legislature has approved this century. The average has been 322 pages.

This chart shows the number of pages in the state budget bill for odd numbered years, starting in 2001. Figures for the 2017 budget bill are for the most recent version available Thursday and are likely to change.(Photo: Mark Barrett/mbarrett@citizen-times.com)

The number of bills passed so far suggests the General Assembly may do less this session than in some years, but it does not mean legislators will end up doing nothing.

In a typical year, three-quarters of the bills that become law do so after June 15. Big debates still lie ahead.

This column has been changed to give the correct number of bills that had become law in the 2011 legislative session as of June 15. It is 145. A previous version gave a lower figure.

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